WHEREAS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) supports public television through its partner, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). A trusted community resource, PBS brings quality programs and education services to nearly 100 million people each week; and

WHEREAS, with community-based arts programming and nationally televised shows, PBS is often the only source of arts programming in many rural parts of the country; and

WHEREAS, Public television airs arts programming that is not available on commercial television. For example, the Legends of Jazz television series on PBS marked the first time in 40 years that jazz has been the focus of a national network weekly series; and

WHEREAS, proposed cuts in the President's budget will weaken National Public Radio (NPR) stations and thus the availability of high-quality arts programming. CPB funding represents an average of 13 percent of the budget for individual member stations of NPR. If NPR loses CPB support, many stations will have to make severe cuts to their programming and local services. This will especially impact rural areas and stations serving minority populations, as these stations heavily rely on federal funding for their operating budgets. While local and state arts agencies also support these stations, they could not make up for a loss of federal funding on this scale; and

WHEREAS, Congress should reject the Administration's proposed funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in the FY 2008 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill. Any reduction in CPB's budget will drastically reduce the access that many Americans have to public broadcasting, and thus to high-quality arts and cultural programming.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the United States Conference of Mayors, joins a broad coalition of public broadcasting supporters with this request to urge Congress to support a budget of no less than $430 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) as part of the FY08 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill.